When the state takes over: civic integration programmes and the role of cities in immigrant integration

The idea that cities enjoy a certain degree of autonomy from the state when it comes to shaping immigrant integration policy has been repeatedly highlighted by research and promoted by good governance discourses. However, the emergence of state-led civic integration programmes (CIP) across Europe would seem to jar with this movement. This is the contradiction that this article explores. CIP mobilise significant resources and streamline immigrant integration through language courses, the provision of information about the host society and vocational orientation. Drawing on policy documents and interviews with local policy-makers on the CIP in the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, this article demonstrates how they reduce the role cities have in immigrant integration; and how they transform integration policies—to varying degrees—from being developed in relationship to locally emerging needs to being charged with state sovereignty. These findings challenge the idea that there is an increasingly local approach to integration. They also raise concerns about the ambitions of CIP. Although presented as a means to make integration policies more efficient, their focus on control and coercion may in fact jeopardise their capacity to respond to concrete integration needs.